Baja California governor urges support of federalization

Four Mexican journalists have been killed so far this year, at least one in reprisal for his work, and several remain missing after a lethal wave of violence in the border city of Reynosa in late February. Pervasive self-censorship is affecting vast regions of the country as a result of the bloody battle for turf between powerful criminal organizations. It is a crisis of national and international implications that requires a strong and decisive response from the government of President Felipe Calderón.

CPJ, together with other international and domestic press
freedom groups, has long been advocating
for federal intervention to address a problem that is inhibiting Mexican
citizens, including journalists, from exercising their right to freedom of
expression.

Now a Mexican governor is urging his state colleagues to
call on Congress to approve a constitutional reform that will make crimes
against free expression a federal offense. During a June 9 meeting of the
Conference of National Governors, Baja California Governor José Guadalupe Osuna
Millán said that reform is needed to end impunity in crimes against the press.

Endorsing CPJ’s principles on federalization—first
introduced to Calderón by a CPJ delegation in June 2008—Osuna said that
reform must protect the rights of all Mexicans, including members of the media.
In supporting federalization, Osuna said that Mexico needs “adequate tools” to
protect the fundamental right to free expression. “This will allow us to build
a more democratic society,” he said during the meeting in Ciudad Victoria,
Tamaulipas state.

A constitutional reform granting federal authorities
jurisdiction over crimes against free expression has been stalled
in Congress since April 2009, CPJ research shows.

Carlos Lauría, CPJ's program director and senior program coordinator for the Americas, is a widely published journalist. A native of Buenos Aires, he has written extensively for Noticias, the leading Spanish-language newsmagazine. Follow him on Facebook @ CPJ en Español.